Earthy mushrooms and tender onions contrast luscious strips of creamy cheese in the filling for this Mushroom and Brie Quiche. Baked in a homemade pie crust it makes an impressive entree for brunch or dinner.

A whole Mushroom and Brie Quiche in a pie dish. — Mushroom and Brie Quiche is baked in an Nearly Foolproof Pie Shell.

A Pi Day Challenge

Pi Day is here, 3.14, and I am still chasing this week’s challenge from Kitchen Parade to make a homemade pie crust. I did make an Upside Down Lemon Meringue Pie earlier this week, with a crunchy meringue pie crust. It was homemade, and it tasted good, but it wasn’t pastry. That could be seen as a good thing. It saves on calories and grams of fat but, I have to admit, I would like to know how to make a good pie pastry.

I have wonderful memories of helping Aunt Hen make pie pastry when I was a girl. Standing at her small kitchen table, I watched her roll out what I remember to be perfect circles of dough and cutting frilly strips of lattice topping. I helped out here and there – getting a tool, turning on the oven, rolling out a small piece of my own dough, eating the scrap pieces baked just for me. I loved the smell and the flaky texture warm from the oven.

But somehow, in the intervening years, we lost the magic. When I got married and hosted a family Thanksgiving at my apartment, I asked my aunt to remind me how to make pie crust. She suggested I buy it readymade from the grocery store instead. She confessed that was what she would usually do. On her advice, I’ve done it that way ever since.

Still, I do have those fond memories of making pie crust and I wanted to give this challenge a try. I began to look for a good recipe. I collected several and then, last Friday, I collected the necessary ingredients and equipment and got busy.

Pie crust disaster 1.1

First, I decided to try the basic pie crust recipe from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook. I have had that cookbook for over twenty-five years and I’m sure I must have tried this recipe before.

You wouldn’t know it. Not that making the dough went all that badly but as I was baking the pastry shell it shrank. Then I forgot about it and it burned.

Just as I discovered my pastry shell was burning, I also realized I was running late for an appointment. I took the burned crust from the pie plate and put the pie plate in the sink. When it touched water it shattered. Not an auspicious beginning.

Pie crust disaster 1.2

Next I tried the Foolproof Pie Dough recipe from Cooks’ Illustrated. Robert, a friend of my husband’s, recommended it. This recipe calls for vodka and I was intrigued. I tried mixing it by hand. This seemed to work well enough. My mistake was that I tried to bake it as a pie shell for a Lemon Meringue Pie. I did not use pie weights and it did not bake evenly. While the baked crust tasted okay I realized I needed more instructions on how to prepare a baked pie shell. I also realized I needed to give up for the day.

Pie crust disaster 1.3

Meanwhile I was making a meringue crust as a back up for the Lemon Meringue Pie. The recipe I was using did not specify how to prepare the pan and so I didn’t. When the meringue was baked it was absolutely impossible to remove it from the pan without destroying it.

Needless to say, Friday was not my day for making pies. Still I was determined. Saturday I got up and tried again.

Pie crust disaster 2.1

The Foolproof Pie Dough recipe had been the most successful on Friday so I began with it on Saturday morning. This time I decided to follow the instructions exactly. Unfortunately, while my food processor holds all of the ingredients it seems it is not big enough to mix them properly. The pie dough became overworked and I gave up without baking it. I was discouraged.

I decided to let the issue rest and simply made another meringue crust for my Lemon Meringue Pie. This time I greased the pie plate and tweaked the recipe a little and it turned out great. I wrote about it and posted it…but those pie pastry disasters kept nagging at me. Surely, as much as I bake, I could manage to make a respectable enough pie crust….Couldn’t I?

Mushrooms in the bottom of a pie pastry to make Mushroom and Brie Quiche. — Nearly Foolproof Pie Pastry is topped with brie and sautéed to make a Mushroom and Brie Quiche.

Pie crust 3.1

Then I read a post at Cupcake Project. Stef added 18 Tablespoons of water to her pie crust and it was still delicious! That gave me hope. Maybe I was being too hard on myself. If I just kept going the pie crusts I made might not have been perfect but might have turned out just fine. Maybe pie pastry isn’t just about attention to detail but is about attitude too. It was worth at least one more shot.

As dinner time approached I turned on my Pi Day playlist. I measured the flour and salt and whisked the ingredients together. I cut in the butter and cold shortening until the mixture looked like coarse meal with small pea sized pebbles in it. Next, I sprinkled in the vodka and water, tossed it with a fork, pressed it with my palm and was amazed to see it stick together. I put it in the refrigerator for a while. Then kneaded it two or three times and rolled it out on my Silpat baking mat. It was lovely.

At this point I put the Silpat with the rolled crust back in the refrigerator for maybe 10 minutes. Meanwhile I worked on the filling. Then I positioned the Silpat over the pie plate and peeled it away from the crust.

A Beautiful Mushroom and Brie Quiche

I gently fit the crust into the pie plate and fluted the edge. So far so good! It is amazing what a little confidence and encouragement from the food blog world can do! After my parade of disasters I was actually making a decent pie crust.

All I needed now was a special pie filling. I settled on a Brie Quiche with onions and earthy mushrooms sautéed and layered over ribbons of mellow brie cheese. Over that I poured a velvety smooth egg and cream mixture sprinkled with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and, of course, some leaves of fresh thyme. Soon I had a beautiful “It’s All About Attitude” Mushroom and Brie Quiche coming out of the oven.

That vodka pie crust was great. Very flaky. Thanks, Robert, for the recommendation. Thanks Kitchen Parade and Smitten Kitchen for great tips and how-tos that got me thinking in the right direction and walked me through it. And thanks Cupcake Project for inspiration.